Precision Report

Precision Software News Round-Up: 2 November 2018

Published Date
11/2/18 12:30 AM

In the Precision Software News Round-Up: 2 November 2018, DHL UK takes over Pass My Parcel; US holiday spending to exceed $1.1 trillion; the Canadian Union of Postal Workers wants an overtime ban; and cross-border e-commerce is driving parcel market growth. Plus we look at IT capabilities for 3PLs, and announce the Precision Common Carrier Platform.

Carriers

DHL PARCEL UK TO TAKE OVER PASS MY PARCEL COLLECTION POINTS

This week, DHL Parcel UK reached an agreement with Pass My Parcel to take over its 3,500 collection points. DHL will begin using the Pass My Parcel network now. However it will only fully take over the network in June next year. More than half of all UK households are within a ten-minute journey of a Pass My Parcel collection point. Consumers can arrange for their parcel to be re-routed to their local location if they miss a delivery. You can read more about this here.

UNION CALLS FOR OVERTIME BAN FOR CANADA POST WORKERS

This week, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) called for a national ban on overtime. The CUPW said that postal workers, including letter carriers, should not work more than 8 hours a day, or 40 hours a week. CUPW National President Mike Palecek said that this was a health and safety issue. He claimed that overworked staff had resulted in “sky-rocketing injury rates.” Postal workers are also continuing with rotating strike action. CUPW and Canada Post have yet to reach new collective agreements for unionized urban and rural workers. One expired agreement allowed Canada Post to mandate overtime for certain workers. For more on this, please click here.

E-Commerce

US HOLIDAY SPENDING TO EXCEED $1.1 TRILLION

It looks likely to be a busy season for retailers. Deloitte’s annual survey forecasts that US holiday spending will exceed $1.1 trillion. This is an increase of more than 5 percent from 2017. The survey also predicts that $128 billion will come from online sales — up around 20 percent from 2017. Forty percent of consumers surveyed said they plan to start holiday shopping on Black Friday. In addition, 53 percent said that they would shop on Cyber Monday. Deloitte also found that 80 percent of consumers intend to shop using a PC. Mobile shopping is also on the increase. This year, 67 percent of shoppers intend to use mobiles to make purchases. This is up from 57 percent last year. For more on this, please click here.

CROSS-BORDER E-COMMERCE HELPING DRIVE PARCEL MARKET GROWTH

This week Transport Intelligence (Ti) published research which found that cross-border e-commerce is helping to drive international express growth. Ti forecast that the global express and small parcels market will grow 8.6 percent this year. This growth is fairly evenly split between domestic and global markets — 8.7 and 8.1 percent respectively. The report found that B2B volumes remain strong, and that online shopping has resulted in B2C growth. Furthermore, Ti predicts that the global express and small parcels market will see a compound annual growth rate of 8.2 percent over the 2017-2022 period. For more on this, please click here.

Precision News

INTRODUCING THE COMMON CARRIER PLATFORM

This week, we announced the launch of our Common Carrier Platform. The Common Carrier Platform establishes a standard global onboarding process for carriers worldwide. It also radically simplified the procedure through which carriers of all sizes can join Precision’s multi-carrier network. To read more about it or join the network, please click here.

THE PRECISION REPORT: TECHNOLOGY AND 3PLS: HOW E-COMMERCE HAS MADE NEW IT CAPABILITIES CRITICAL

Last year, nearly 100 billion parcels made their way around the world. The explosion in parcel volumes along with the growth of e-commerce has shifted the shipping profiles of many logistics providers. A 3PL whose technology systems are built around large freight orders may struggle with this new normal. Furthermore, many 3PLs do not have the technological capabilities their customers require. This year, only 56 percent of shippers expressed satisfaction with their 3PL’s IT capabilities. As technology has improved, shippers’ expectations have risen. In this week’s Precision Report we look at the IT capabilities 3PLs can leverage to support the global trade and e-commerce activities of their customers. You can read the full report here.

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